OH NO: Albert Heijn in Leiden manipulates photo paying tribute to shelf stackers

We said it before: not only healthcare workers, but shelf stackers also deserve a huge round of applause. Albert Heijn on Bevrijdingsplein in Leiden agrees, but paying for it? Nah, they’d rather not do that.

The supermarket posted a photo of a tribute to shelf stackers on Facebook, but conveniently photoshopped out their request for higher wages.

14 euros

Here’s the situation: the FNV trade union held a campaign outside the Albert Heijn in Leiden last week. They paid tribute to the hard-working shelf stackers in sidewalk chalk: “Shelf stackers, we can’t do without you” was written in large, colorful capital letters. Underneath it also said: “Minimum wage 14 euros.” The campaign is part of FNV’s broader campaign calling for—yes, you guessed it—the minimum wage to be raised to 14 euros per hour.

Photoshop fail

The supermarket on Bevrijdingsplein wholeheartedly agreed with the message. Well… with the first part, anyway. They shared the photo on Facebook, but did make one small edit:

See it? This display of truly terrible Photoshop skills is hard to miss, but in case you didn’t notice: the text “Minimum wage 14 euros” has been replaced with paving stones.

‘Awkward move’

Naturally, it didn’t go unnoticed. “It was an awkward move by the store,” an Albert Heijn spokesperson admits. “What you’re seeing is that a lot of messages of support are appearing during this period, and this store also saw it as a message of support and decided to leave out the bottom text. It’s understandable in a way. They’re extremely frustrated by it.”

The store has since removed the Facebook post.

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